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Has Monguno Served Qualitatively?

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Drug War: The President Is Right After All!

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Emmanuel Onwubiko

Mohammed Babagana Monguno has had the fortune to have held some of the most prestigious but highly demanding roles whilst in the Nigerian Military and even after his stint in the Nigerian Army.

Wikipedia says he is a retired Nigerian military general and current National Security Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari, a position he has held for six years.  He was the Chief of Defence Intelligence from July 2009 to September 2011, and Commander of the Brigade of Guards from 2007 to 2009.

From the above career trajectory, it is not out of place to state emphatically that Monguno is one of the few whose ‘Chi’ (God) benevolently helped to crack their palm kernel (as professor Chinua Achebe would put it).

But his actions, inactions and happenings around his office as the National Security Adviser to President Buhari are perhaps what should bother every rational and patriotic analyst of the precarious security situation in the country of our birth.

Monguno as the National Security Adviser at a particular time that students and children are plucked off their schools by armed terrorists and kidnappers almost on a weekly basis without strategic military-ed effort at safe returns of these terrorized children of Nigeria, is to say the least, a man who has overstayed his welcome in office.

Two other things that have happened with him, around him and about him, go to expose the universal fact that he is not a qualitative National Security Adviser because  if detailed statistics of insecurity are compiled, Nigeria ranks amongst the most troubled and terrorized society in the world. This was perhaps why a former United States Ambassador to Nigeria John Campbell drew a fatalistic conclusion that Nigeria right now under this political dispensation has become a failed state.

The two things I alluded to are the corruption that stinks inside and within the office of the National Security Adviser assuming the investigative reports as published by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission are anything to go by, and the second incident is the confession openly made by  the National Security Adviser that the  Kaduna-based Islamic cleric Ahmad Gumi has the right to meet armed bandits. This claim is preposterous and shows the unambiguous evidence that the National Security Adviser has failed.

This is because, the activities and speeches at public fora by Sheikh Ahmad Gumi directly contradict the terrorism prevention Act, 2013 which is a valid law of Nigeria.

READ ALSO: NSA Denies Accusing Ex-service Chiefs Of Misusing Arms Funds

The following is a run- down of how one of the leading media houses in Nigeria reported the scam inside the office of the National Security Adviser.

The media reports: “Soldiers on Wednesday threatened to shoot officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission that came to mark properties seized from Brig. Gen Jafaru Mohammed, the Director of Finance and Administration at the Office of the National Security Adviser.

The EFCC had obtained an interim forfeiture from a Federal High Court in Abuja on March 11, 2021, and proceeded to mark eight properties belonging to the NSA’s aide.

“Our correspondent, who visited Sun City in the Lokogoma area of Abuja on Wednesday, reported that after a team of EFCC officials began marking General Mohammed’s building located on 52 Main Street, Sun City, in red paint, armed soldiers arrived in a white Hilux marked GWA481EA and chased the EFCC officials away. The soldiers took a bucket of water and soap and quickly cleaned off the markings which read, ‘EFCC, Under Investigation, Keep Off!

“Our correspondent, who visited other properties linked to the general, observed that soldiers were on guard to prevent EFCC officials from marking them.

Justice Folashade Ogunbanjo had in a suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/007/2021 ordered the interim forfeiture of eight properties linked to General Mohammed who is a trusted aide to the NSA, Major General Babagana Moguno (retd.).

“The investigation of Mohammed is part of a wider probe into the finances of the Office of the NSA.

“Other properties affected include: A house at 7 God’s Own Estate, Road 1, Wamba District, a fenced plot at 1 Jubril Aminu Crescent, Katampe Extension, a plot at Kubwa Express Road directly opposite Abuja Model City Gate, a house at Block SD 22, Road 5, Kabusa Garden Estate, Abuja; Plot 15, 21st Crescent, Second Avenue, Gwarinpa, 3 Liverpool Close, Sun City Estate and 25 Osaka Street, Sun City.

“The properties are believed to be worth billions of naira which far exceed the income of a brigadier general.”

On the other leg of the well founded reason why the National Security Adviser has failed to offer qualitative service to the country is his statement that Sheikh Ahmad Gumi can as well meet with armed bandits.

READ ALSO: Coping Skills For Success

Here is what the Terrorism Prevention Act of 2013 said about the strident defence that Gumi continues to advance in favour of kidnappers and terrorists in the North: “Section 5(1) Any person who knowingly, in any manner, directly or indirectly, solicits or renders support
(a) for the commission of an act of terrorism or (b) to a terrorist group,
commits an offence under this Act and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of not less than twenty years.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1) of this section, “support” includes-
(a) incitement to commit a terrorist act through the internet, or any electronic means or through the use of printed materials or through the dissemination of terrorist information;
(b) receipt or provision of material assistance, weapons including biological, chemical or explosives, training, weapons, false documentation or identification to terrorists or terrorist groups;
(c) receipt or provision of information or moral assistance, including invitation to adhere to a terrorist or terrorist group;
(d) entering or remaining in a country for the benefit of, or at the direction of or in association with a terrorist group; or
(e) the provision of, or making available, such financial or other related services prohibited under this Act or as may be prescribed by regulations made pursuant to this Act.

(3) In this section, it is not necessary to prove that the financial material or information or facilities or financial assistance was actually collected or provided if it can be reasonably established that the person collected or
provided the material, information or facilities or financial assistance to terrorists, or terrorist groups.”

Monguno does not care about the extant law which prohibits the kind of open campaign in favour of terrorists that Ahmad Gumi has been waging but Monguno, the National Security Adviser said Ahmad Gumi has offered to help the government in tackling insecurity.

This is the same Ahmad Gumi who has the backing of the National Security Adviser to go about negotiating soft-landing for terrorists and armed bandits and has added fuel to the fire when he threatened that the kidnapping of student will continue until government accepts the blackmail of these terrorists.

Gumi who has been meeting with suspected bandits terrorising communities in the north-west and in the north-central has likened them to militants in the Niger Delta, and asked that they are not tagged criminals. He has also called on the federal government to grant blanket amnesty for the bandits.

At a state house briefing, General Monguno, while fielding questions from journalists, said he had met with Gumi, and that he was waiting to see how the cleric could help the government.

Hear him: “Sheik Gumi is doing what he’s doing because he believes in what he’s doing. He’s a Nigerian and under the constitution he can talk to anybody. He can deal with anybody,” he said.

“I met with him when I went with the service chiefs to Kaduna, and we spoke generally during the meeting and he resolved to help government. We are waiting for him. That’s all I can say.”

The NSA said the government was not averse to holding talks with bandits, but that it could not negotiate with people who were unreliable.

READ ALSO: Missing $1b Arms Funds Withdrawn From Excess Crude Account – Wike

“While government is not averse to talking with these entities, it also has to fully apply its weight. You can’t negotiate with people who are unreliable and who will continue to hurt society,” he said.

“We will apply the full weight of the government to deal with these criminals.

“These are not people looking for anything that is genuine or legitimate, they’re just out to take calculated measures to inflict pain and violence on innocent people. We must deal with them the way they need to be dealt with. We will fully assert the government’s will.”

Clearly, the Kaduna- based cleric is openly supporting terrorists. Sheik Abubakar Gumi urged the federal government to negotiate with the bandits in order to stop kidnappings in the country. Gumi, who was reacting to the abduction of some school children in Niger State, said the needless kidnappings would continue until there was genuine negotiation with bandits.

According to him, the bandits are only looking for money, hence they resorted to the abduction of innocent students.

In an exclusive interview with The Punch, the cleric stated that there were about 100,000 armed bandits in the northwest alone.

Gumi said the bandits kidnapping school pupils were disappointed that he negotiated with them without the involvement of the federal government.

Speaking on the efforts to rescue the kidnapped pupils of Tegina Islamic School, Niger State, Gumi insisted that until the government engaged with the herdsmen, no school could be safe, especially in the north.

He said: “But we are trying to talk sense to them that these are just innocent schoolchildren. We don’t even have any idea of the condition of the children. We are just saying these are young children trying to study and they did nothing, so why are you trying to take dirty money from their families?”

Gumi, however, said that with good engagement, education and enticements like jobs and other things, the bandits would leave the illegal job, adding that he needed a partner and that the government should understand that individuals like him alone could not do it.

He said: “All those we met (have stopped kidnapping), except for one of them who is kidnapping again, and he told us his reason, that he was neglected and he thought we had the mandate to negotiate.”

Gumi says bandits are tired, want genuine negotiation with FG

READ ALSO: Dakkada: What Difference Has It Made In Six years? (II)

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that Sheik Gumi declared that bandits terrorising some states across the country were tired and wanted peace. It was reported that the Kaduna-based Islamic scholar said bandits were ready to lay down their arms if they got a genuine partnership from the government.

Gumi noted that bandits said they were pushed into banditry by circumstances, adding that he had met with about 80% of the bandits.

How then can any rational writer ascribe the attribute of a good National Security Adviser to the occupant of that position in Nigeria when the person does not see anything wrong in providing moral support for bandits and terrorists?

We will conclude by looking at some deep writing about the attributes of a good National Security Adviser so our readers can read them vis-a-vis  the heightened insecurity in Nigeria and draw their conclusion.

From the reference material we consulted, we were told that you know if you can be a successful advisor by seeing the following ten characteristics highlighted below:

1. Have a genuine interest in helping others succeed.  Professionals who are most successful in an advisor role are those truly passionate about working side-by-side with a CEO or business leader who needs a little extra help. Fortunately, advisors are being actively sought out by companies in nearly every industry imaginable, so it is easy to find companies with a mission that aligns with your personal interests.

Plus, being an on-demand advisory work allows you to decide when and how often you engage in opportunities to ensure all participation is meaningful – to both the advisor and  company. On-demand advisors are hired by the hour, on the days and times that best suit their schedule;

2. Have in-depth expertise on a topic(s) in their field.  The knowledge and first-hand experiences that executives possess are extremely valuable to companies who need to fill gaps within their organization. If you have a specific expertise or skill-set that relates to a company’s needs, you become a critical asset in helping them overcome challenges or take on new opportunities;

3. Willingness to share advice and knowledge.
It’s one thing to be knowledgeable on a topic, but it’s another to want to share that expertise with others. Willingness to share advice is one of the most important aspects of being an advisor. As long as you’re open to teaching others what you know, you can play a very influential role in the success of another company;

4. Demonstrates effective communication skills.
Being able to communicate your thoughts and ideas in a way that others can understand is extremely important as an advisor. If the person on the receiving end of your advice doesn’t use the same terminology as you, you’ll need to break it down in a way that resonates with them.

There are also times when advisors have to be the voice of reason or disagree with a CEO for the betterment of the company, and in doing so they need to be straightforward and realistic with their reasonings. A good advisor provides constructive feedback in a way that encourages change or progress.

Digital advisory boards, like those sourced through Advisory Cloud, allow you to communicate directly with companies and CEOs on an ongoing basis to help guide them toward better decision-making and solve their most pressing business needs;

5. Effectively sets and achieves goals.
A major component of being an advisor is helping a CEO or leadership team reach a specific goal or goals. CEOs have a lot on their plates, which can sometimes derail them from focusing on an objective they set at an earlier point. A good advisor steers the CEO back on track to make sure they achieve their goals. In doing so, you need to be fair and objective, as well as able to address challenges head-on.

For professionals looking to diversify their leadership experience, this is a great opportunity to take on new roles and add to your list of accomplishments;

6. Has a positive attitude and can be a positive role model.

Advisors have the unique opportunity to help shape the success of another company, and as a result they also have a unique relationship with the CEO. Many CEOs view their advisors as a personal mentor and role model, helping them to become better overall leaders. A successful advisor leads by example and provides support and a positive outlook during both good times and bad;

7. Leverages a network of peers.

In addition to their in-depth expertise, advisors have something else very valuable to offer – business connections. It may seem simple, but making a few introductions could open new doors and opportunities for a CEO. But don’t worry, you don’t need to give away your entire network, but instead evaluate your connections and decide where your business ties can be helpful to both parties involved – and as an added bonus will strengthen your existing relationships;

8. Ability to listen.

As the person who is more experienced or more knowledgeable on a topic, it can be easier to voice your opinions and ideas. However, listening can be just as helpful. CEOs often need someone to talk through problems or bounce around ideas with, and being an attentive listener will give you insight into their thought processes or direction they’re trying to move toward – which ultimately helps you guide them toward achieving their goals;

9. Passionate about their work.

If you are passionate about the work you do, it will show. The most successful advisors are those who get excited about solving new challenges and eagerly approach new opportunities. If you are genuinely unimpressed by a company’s mission or values, you will be less motivated to perform well as an advisor;

10. Values the opinions of others.
Lastly, a good advisor respects and values the opinions of the people they work with. When you support the ideas of others you are better able to collaborate with them, build off those ideas, and create result-driven objectives. (advisorycloud.com)

Lauren Monsen in 2019 wrote thus:

“The national security adviser participates in meetings of the U.S. National Security Council (NSC) and usually chairs meetings of the council’s Principals Committee with the secretary of state and secretary of defence when the president is not in attendance. The national security adviser offers the president a range of options on national security issues.”

“Among other duties, the national security adviser helps plan the president’s foreign travel and provides background memos and staffing for the president’s meetings and phone calls with world leaders.”

“The national security adviser also prepares the president for NSC meetings, helps draft national security and foreign policy speeches, helps to prepare for meetings with congressional leaders, responds to presidential requests for information, and briefs the president on issues of the moment.”

“Stephen Hadley, who was President George W. Bush’s national security adviser from 2005 to 2009, described the scope of the job in a 2016 speech. He said the adviser needs to advance presidential initiatives within the executive branch of the federal government.”

Although the national security adviser works closely with cabinet members, Hadley said he or she “must be careful not to usurp the role of the cabinet officers — especially the secretaries of defence and state,” who run their departments and have authority over agency budgets.

From the above, there is no doubt that President Muhammadu Buhari needs to dismiss his National Security Adviser without any further delay.

 Onwubiko is the head of the Human Rights Writers (HURIWA) and was a federal commissioner at the National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria.

 

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Opinion

Use Your Penis: Hopes, Expectations And Realities Of African Migrants In Europe

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The panelists at the event.

By Leo Igwe

The issue of migration to Europe has been in the news. There has been intense discussion on how to tackle the flow of migrants to, not from, Europe. There have been reports of boats carrying migrants capsizing or missing on the Mediterranean Sea. Many Africans have died trying to enter Europe via the Sahara desert. North African and European countries have taken measures to curb illegal migration and human trafficking. Still, the migration flow out of Africa continues and shows no signs of abating. Why has the migration of Africans or migration from Africa become such a huge problem? What are the hopes, experiences and realities of these migrants?

In August I was invited to speak at a seminar on migration. The focus was on the migration of Africans to Europe. The event took place in Bergen, Norway. As a doctoral student, I lived in Germany for six years. I was invited to speak at programs on migration. Governmental and nongovernmental agencies in Denmark and Germany organized the events. I did not find these events interesting because the focus was on human trafficking and the role of African juju and witchcraft. Do not get me wrong. Human trafficking is a huge problem and needs to be addressed. But we have to tackle the problem from the root. These events were by my estimate a complete waste of time and money because organizers and participants were not ready to tell themselves the truth, face the facts and address the real issue. They want to make themselves feel good and privileged while talking about these helpless Africans streaming to their shores. Organizers were more interested in marginal voodoo, and oath-taking issues. They made it seem as if there was something unusual about African migration. But there was not. Migration is as old as human beings. Humans from all races and regions have been migrating from one region to another, from one country or continent to another. Before this recent wave of migration out of Africa, people from Europe, America, and Asia have been migrating to Africa. They are still migrating for business, social, economic, religious, and political reasons.

Contemporary African migration is mainly economic. It is driven by poverty, miserable living conditions, and the devastation of African economies by European, Asian, and American companies. To tackle the problem of migration, African economies must be fixed. The continent must realize an economic leap. Now instead of focusing on the economic roots of the problem and how to address them, many Europeans and Americans expend energy discussing trivialities, such as the role of voodoo and so-called powerful witch doctors in Nigeria. Well, at these events, I told the organizers the bitter truth. I told them to forget this juju or voodoo talk and face the reality: the destruction and revival of African economies. I told the organizers what they did not want to hear. And they never invited me back.

But this time around it was different. The organizers were not Europeans or Americans. A Nigerian student at the University of Bergen staged the event. He contacted me some months ago, drawing my attention to the plight of African migrants in Norway. He explained how many who travel to Norway and other European countries had their hopes and expectations dashed. Many who migrate to this country or other European countries end up entrapped. They are compelled to go into things they did not plan to do. Many migrants end up in a new form of slavery, in a marriage to a European citizen. Left with the option of going back to Africa at the end of their study or marrying to get the documents to stay, many end up contracting a marriage, in many cases a paper or document marriage. These marriages entrap them, they turn these migrants into errand boys and girls. Many of them are mistreated. They suffer silently. If they misbehaved, their partners would threaten to report them to the authorities and get them deported. I was told that many in the African migrant communities were not helping matters. Someone told me that he approached some migrants seeking and wanting to know how he could navigate migration issues. But the person told him: “Use your penis”. I guess for a female it would have been a case of: Use your vagina. While studying in Germany, some African migrants told me how they were sexually exploited, and dehumanized before they could get legal documents to stay in the country. One woman told me that everyman who wanted to help her wanted to sleep with her.

So, the program was cathartic. It provided a space to let out these pains, sufferings, disappointments, and frustrations.

The event brought together ‘free-will’ migrants and Norwegians. The panelists were from Ghana, South Sudan, Nigeria, and Belarus. I was the only international guest on the panel. Other panelists discussed the hurdles that they have faced, and the challenges that they confronted trying to live and integrate in Norway. As one panelist noted, many who come to study were unable to find a job at the end of their program. In many cases, they graduated and found out that there was no job for them, or they were unable to speak the local language, which was a requirement for many jobs. Another panelist from Ghana, married to a Norwegian, discussed her challenges as a migrant parent in Norway. She recounted how her child had suffered racism in the school. She narrated an experience where the child did a group assignment with four other white Norwegian children. And the teacher gave her child four marks for the assignment and other group members five marks.

There was some discussion on illegal migration and the risks involved. Some Norwegians in the audience noted that many African migrants knew about the risks they could face migrating to Europe. And still, they decided to embark on the risky journey. There was a lot of focus on migrants and their experiences traveling from Africa. However, little or no attention was paid to the European connection with the problem, the fact that western foreign economic policies have devastating effects on African economies. Africa is a market for Western goods including Norwegian stockfish. Apparently Europe needs African markets not African migrants. Western multinationals are relentlessly plowing and plundering the resources of Africa in ways that have displaced the local populations. African professionals are leaving in droves. They are migrating to work in the West and the Middle East. So, Western economies profit from the migration flow and the cheap labor it provides. Western countries benefit from the economic status quo that has turned Africans into migrants and refugees in Europe and America. To contain the flow of migrants to Europe, the situation in Africa must change. African economies must begin to grow and improve. Western governments must end the economic exploitation of Africa.

Dr. Igwe directs the Advocacy for Alleged Witches.

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Reading Professor Olu Obafemi’s Melodies Of Inclement Climes

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Readers’ Showers Of Encouragement
Prof. Tony Afejuku

By Tony Afejuku

    “Happiness is a crime in Nigeria.” This is a line – a line of distinction – I am lifting from a message sent to me as a response to my last Friday’s column on ‘“Professor Mabel Evwierhoma on Rubiales and “Wetin women want.”’ The owner of the lifted line is a positively dangerous poet, radical scholar and critic Professor Owojecho Omoha of the University of Abuja. I will at a later date revisit the full message of this literary scholar who is one of the distinguished boosters of this column.

    Why is his quoted line meaningful or relevant to me today? For good reason, I have been trying to reinvigorate the idea or thought of happiness in Nigeria – your country my country our country – despite our common concerns concerning our dissatisfaction with our ungrateful leaders who significantly are our demonic consumers consuming this land, our land centuries and more than centuries ago. On my way to Warri last Friday I was thinking deeply about this when I was caught in the Benin-Ologbo obstacle on that cruel stretch of the Benin-Sapele-Warri Road of urbanized or almost urbanized jungle. I was clutching Professor Olu Obafemi’s very new book of poems, his fresh new volume of poetry which he quite properly entitles Melodies of Inclement Climes. I was looking at the moving poems in my desire to erase temporarily from my mind the vicious, tedious, muddy, degraded watery road which is evidently and steadily now the road of the unhappy people of the Niger Delta, and it was at this moment that Owojecho Omoha’s line found me. But I was already engrossed in the first offering, the first poem, in which the Niger Delta malaise stares at me – even though Professor Olu Obafemi is not from the Niger Delta, your Niger Delta my Niger Delta our Niger Delta. Ologbo where conservatively above three thousand trucks (trailers) and other uncountable vehicles – commercial and private – were practically at a stand-still, moving without moving because of the motorable-less motor-way, is one of the unfortunate or tragic by-products of urbanization that is no urbanization in the Niger Delta. Ologbo is a border town, a border community that links Edo State and Delta State. It is the most significant place that links Itsekiri, Urhobo and Edo (Benin) communities. It is the place where the work of cooperation and mutual help among the communities and travellers through the communities can find significantly honest expression that should capture our cultural and patriotic ethos that should give us good health and happiness. This is what Olu Obafemi seems to tell us, among other things, in “Those who gaze beyond today:”

    While others like us 

    Bleed our land to death 

    Greedily erecting mansions 

    In other people’s lands, 

    Laundering filthy coins 

    Stolen from the sweaty brows 

    Of the poor and the deprived 

    In our own un-honed beaches and sandy shores!

    Lay to ruin and waste and wreck 

    The black Gold!

As I read Professor Olu Obafemi’s Melodies at the shores of Ologbo two things emerged to me and rose to my dense imagination in a more than realistic way and manner. The first is that Olu Obafemi is a patriot and a national poet. His imagination extends beyond his Kiri-land (North Eastern Yoruba-land in Northern Nigeria) streams to dwell on national problems that depict our respective inclement climes – or, to put it differently, in his “Streams of Kiriland” (I am not alluding specifically to his poem that bears this title) we have a glimpse of our respective communal malaise that shows us our respective inclement land in our untamed beaches in Ologbo of the Niger Delta and elsewhere outside Ologbo or Kiriland. As beautiful and as nostalgic Kiriland is or may be it is strange that urbanization and civilization have not befriended it. It is this perspective that throws up to me the second vital aspect of Melodies of Inclement Climes. Olu Obafemi conservers what is best from his (and our) past in order for the merciless problems and inclementness of today can be properly addressed. So I am not reading Professor Olu Obafemi as an entire nostalgic poet after all! Our lives’ test is not and cannot be the past or the future. It is now. It is today. It is the present. It is the here and now. Are we happy today in our country – economically, commercially, politically, educationally, medically, technologically, hygiene-wise and otherwise? Without endorsing the present that is before us we cannot honestly face tomorrow. We live in an economy and in a political clime ruled and propelled by ingratitude, disaffection and dissatisfaction and exploitation and oppression. Let me quote our poet of melodies dwelling on our inglorious climes: “Let our earth be replenished again/As scavengers and scoundrels are rid of our land.” (39).This must be so if we must eliminate “Death [that] clings to our throats/As mortal Anopheles, King of Death –/Husband of malaria, swarm/And corpses hold parades on our shores” (44). What our country needs now is a renewed vision, a full insight into our shortcomings, limits and possibilities informed by our awareness and knowledge of our place in the comity of nations. This is an absolute necessity if we must live an adequately and properly human life. 

    Professor Olu Obafemi is a super ambidextrous writer and scholar of more than numerous parts. He is best known as a play-wright, dramatist and theatre personage, theorist and critic of a profoundly profound mind. But he is without question a poet of distinction as well – which the present volume superbly makes evident. Melodies of Inclement Climes appeals to me exceedingly from the perspectives of the rhetoric of poetic drama, phenomenology, biography, memory, wrap of childhood, autobiography, history, activism, politics, geography, social exploration, revolutionary revolution, psychology, public health, progressive variation in language and feeling. I am on purpose not dwelling on all these perspectives in this briefly appealing enterprise to engender every reader’s interest in Melodies. (I am thinking of something adventurous and enchantingly enchanting outside here). With respect to the last named subject, let me titillate my readers thus: I wish you to join me to think of Professor Olu Obafemi as a magnificent poet who concentrates everything feelingly into a sentence –“Melodies of Inclement Climes;” “And hardened villains of misrule;” “And love shall visit these shores again;” “This is the story of our nation now; Debtor-elephant.”

    The beauty of Professor Olu Obafemi’s new volume of poetry is the trick of its language. The emotions or feelings the poet generates are significant enough to ensure full daylight in our inclement climes. It is thus not for nothing that Professor Olu Obafemi has been a recipient of the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM) and wearer of other laurels. His rhetoric is not any adornment or inflation of words done for the reader’s unquestionable insight or for a particular effect but for a general creative power that has an intensity and concision of indubitably great poetry. 

    Melodies of Inclement Climes will leap in my arms, hands, and mind for a pretty long time of creative reading and critical happiness.  This is not an ostentatious praise, but the true judgment of a reader and critic – this reader and critic – of esthetic and moral sensibility. I duly bow and salute the poet for this fresh volume. Join me in my bow and salutation.

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.

 

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The West And The Hypocrisy Of Democracy

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Dele Jegede In Conversation With Prince Yemisi Shyllon
Prof. Toyin Falola

By Toyin Falola

Western deception has been with Africa forever:

1493: Pope Alexander VI issued a papal bull, “Inter Caetera,” proclaiming the right of Spain and Portugal to enslave Africans and own the land. They were subjects. They stole your people and your land.

1885: Africa was a Dark Continent. It required colonization to become civilized. Europe would bring change and civilize them. They stole your raw materials and truncated your self-development.

1940: When over a million Africans fought in Europe, North Africa and the Far East during the Second World War, the West convinced them they were dying for freedom and democracy. But where in Africa do they receive freedom and democracy? Indeed, Apartheid was inaugurated in 1948 in South Africa.

When will this deception come to an end? So, Gabon and Niger were democracies before the 2023 coups? You must be using the wrong dictionary to define democracy. Cameroon under the invalid Paul Biya is a democracy? You must be confusing the Mali Empire with the modern country of Cameroon. And the presidents who rule for as long as they want practising democracy?

You need a little education.

Recent developments in Africa’s political space, particularly the growing number of military takeovers, have informed fresh queries around the expressions of neo-colonialism in Africa and the commitment to liberal democracy as the ideal political model for the region. The point of reference for these queries is the ceremonial reactions from the acclaimed “champions of democracy” in the West, who waste no time issuing condemnations at every instance of “democratic failure” on the continent without any actual commitment to ensuring that power indeed lies with the people. Not only have these champions of African interests—the United States (US), Britain and France—touted democracy as the best system of political organization to achieve political stability and economic prosperity in Africa, but they have also prosecuted wars, allegedly in its defence, which cost millions of lives and destabilized entire regions. However, it is not enough to accuse our benevolent friends in the West of hypocrisy without providing compelling proof of double-dealing in delivering their duties as democratic crusaders. After all, in a democratic setting, all are innocent until proven guilty. 

As a philosophy of government, democracy has existed since the Greco-Roman times. However, its foray into Africa can be traced to the eve of independence when Britain and France introduced forms of local representation as concessions to indigenous demands for independence. Thus, from 1959, parliamentary elections and other democratic institutions started to become commonplace on the continent. But, as it would turn out, this democratic experiment, which formed part of the third (global) wave of democracy, was to be short-lived—derailed as it was by fluctuating Western interests on the continent. 

Guiding Western interest in Africa from the 1950s was the ideological war between the West (mainly the USA) and the Soviet Union. The “Cold War,” as it came to be known, was the first incident to unmask the real intentions of the West for post-colonial Africa. In their quest to emerge as the world’s sole superpower, the US and the Soviet Union, who actively strove to undermine each other’s influence by, among other things, advancing their political ideologies around the world, turned to Africa as another important frontier of conquest. While the Soviet Union armed African revolutionary movements against their Western colonial overlords and provided support to openly communist governments, Washington concluded that, to effectively check the spread of Soviet influence on the continent, it was more expedient to enthrone biddable leaders in African states than it was to woo them with any ideological arguments or economic incentives.

Anxious to ensure power was handed over to reliable politicians, Britain and France became eager participants in the US policy in Africa. Together, the US and its allies targeted venal local strongmen, preferably with military backgrounds and authoritarian tendencies, who, in collaboration with its intelligence agencies, ousted legitimate/democratic governments. Notable victims and beneficiaries of this plot included (in the former category) Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Patrice Lumumba of Congo DRC, Sylvio Olympio of Togo and (in the latter category) Idi Amin of Uganda, Mobutu Sese Seko of Congo DRC and Gnassingbé Eyadema of Togo, to mention a few. Consequently, thirty-three African countries that achieved independence between 1956-1970 became authoritarian immediately or not long after. 

Another demonstration of the complete disregard that the West has for democracy, peace/stability and human rights in Africa is its willingness to engulf the entire region in conflict so that it can achieve its “strategic interests.”  Once again, we begin from the Cold War era where, having recently come out of a highly destructive war in Europe (in 1945) and being cautious of engaging in another, the West and the Eastern Bloc turned Africa into the site of their proxy wars. In southern Africa, where the US considered both Angola and Mozambique as areas of “strategic interests,” Washington armed the 200,000 Portuguese conscripts, who went on to fight a protracted war against local nationalist revolutionaries, with imported weapons, which included defoliants and napalm. In Angola, the US, in cooperation with Apartheid South Africa, backed the National Union for Total Independence (UNITA) against the country’s (Soviet-backed) leading national liberation front, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). There were also similar cases in northern Africa where Sudan was funded and armed by the US against Egypt and Ethiopia, who had also pitched their tents with Moscow. These conflicts and the resultant proliferation of arms saw the loss of millions of African lives from war and famine and a general destabilization of the region. 

While the West cannot be said to have been directly involved in all the occasions of transition from democratic to authoritarian rule, in more than a few instances, the leaders of newly independent democratic/multi-party African states seized the opportunity of Western patronage to quickly switch to one-party/despotic rule. In other cases, it was the corruption, resource mismanagement, “tribalism,” patrimonialism, clientelism and imperialism perpetrated by a Western-backed ruling political class which formed the basis of military takeovers (coups). Nevertheless, in this atmosphere of quasi-democratic rule, full-fledged despotism, military rule and Apartheid—where national resources were siphoned by kleptocratic regimes and millions of Africans either became refugees or died as a result of civil wars, hunger, and human rights abuses—our western “friends” were content to look the other way if the government in place proved itself an ally of Washington.      

Perhaps the most glaring example of the West’s democratic hypocrisy in Africa was its age-long support for the highly racist and politically repressive Apartheid regime in South Africa. Like the French, who were able to cajole Washington into believing that they were fighting communist-backed insurgents in Algeria, the South African Apartheid regime, for forty years, posed as the last bastion against communists in Africa—an attitude that was able to secure a steady flow of western arms. This, alongside the West’s tacit approval, allowed for one of Africa’s most despicable shows of human debasement, carried out in the name of imperialism and racial superiority. After all, as President Ronald Regan remarked in 1981, South Africa was “essential to the free world in its production of minerals we all must have.”  

The end of the Cold War changed Western attitudes towards Africa. Without the Soviet threat, the West leaned more towards development diplomacy and foreign aid regimes as the main thrust of its foreign policy in Africa. Foreign aid to Africa, however, turned out to be a Trojan horse. Already saddled with the task of building vibrant economies whilst also harmonizing the aspirations of the different ethnic nationalities which characterized them, African countries, especially in Francophone Africa, also had to grapple with the undermining economic and political agreements they had been coerced into signing with their erstwhile colonial overlord as a condition for independence and continued patronage. To make matters worse, some African countries were, at the end of the Cold War, either fighting or had just come out of civil war. This, combined with the widespread corruption and mismanagement of national resources which characterized Africa’s tyrannical governments, put many Af5rican countries at the mercy of international monetary agencies (the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank) and their financiers whose aid they were now heavily dependent on. 

At first, these Bretton Woods institutions were content to grant loans/aid, at debilitating interest rates no less, to authoritarian leaders who used them to perpetuate themselves in power and, in return, provided the former with mineral and other economic concessions. However, without the Cold War pressures, more emphasis was placed on the liberalization and capitalist/free-market aspects of US foreign policy to guarantee return on investments. Soon enough, Structural Adjustments Programmes (SAPs) were introduced as a precondition for further loans/aid. Said adjustments, which demanded limited government intervention in the public sector, i.e., removing government subsidies in energy (fuel/gas), education and health care, brought untold hardships to already suffering populations. And as research has shown, poverty and non-tax revenue make for the ideal democratic environment. In other words, “when the government is not beholden to citizens for its funding, there is less accountability and less reason to democratize” (Tilly 1990). Instead, leaders simply use the “free” funding from natural resources (oil) and foreign loans/aid to buy enough support to remain in power. 

Judging from the various expressions of Western interests in Africa over decades, it goes without saying that the West simply pays lip service to ideologies when convenient. Although many Africans might not object to the cynical pragmatism that has always guided Western foreign policy in Africa, I dare say they will not stand for the continued lies and hypocrisy that have characterized Western reactions to African developments. Even if the above-described instances of Western hypocrisy in Africa were to be argued to be in the past, it is a living past for Africa.  

Africa, today, still has authoritarian governments in place whose political repression and human rights abuses go on unchecked by our democracy and rule of law-loving friends in the West. After being siphoned by kleptocratic governments, our commonwealth still finds its way to Western banks, where it sits and improves the local economy. Western interests continue to impoverish Africans and destabilize their regions. So, Africans are today saying to the West, its diplomats, presidents, and the other agents of its propaganda: “Your gambit in Africa is up. Our people are awakened!”   

The West has sold you a fake product called democracy. Africans, your vote is not a sign of democracy. It is no more than a deception. There is no democracy without accountability. You are just voting thieves to power. There is no democracy without transparency. You are just using your votes in support of crooks and thugs. There is no democracy without good governance. Your vote is facilitating theft. Maybe you are waiting for your turn to steal. There is no democracy without development. Your vote is moving you back to the Stone Age. Even early humans knew when to replace stones with iron during the Stone Age. Africa, you don’t have a democracy. Anyone you have not appointed cannot disappoint you! Citizens are being deceived, and they are deceiving themselves. Organize yourselves at various levels and think of alternatives to democracy or, at the minimum, how accountability and transparency will form the core of your democratic practices. Your lifetime president is not a Democrat. He is an authoritarian kleptocrat far worse than the combination of Doris Payne, Stephane Breitwieser, Simon Leviev, Veerappan, Derek Smalls, Vincenzo Peruggia, Bonnie and Clyde, Natwarlal, Carl Gugasian, Frank Abagnale, Anna Sorokin, Albert Spaggiari, Jesse James, Anthony Strangis, and Bill Mason. Do you know these names?

 

 

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